By Socratis Santik Oglou,
Loneliness is when you are in a world, where even today, not everyone accepts you, while in order to find yourself, you have to go through millions of waves. Loneliness is crying out of despair and no one understanding you; crying and no one being moved; loving and not disturbing anyone’s inner world, being in pain and no one feeling you.
Loneliness is sitting still among people and not having a word to exchange because you think they will find out about you or how there is no way they will understand your problems. Loneliness is meeting someone in real life and talking to them in person, but not finding a recipient. You want to talk to someone like you about your life story — perhaps even coming out —, but you cannot, because there is no one there.
Loneliness is telling to someone the words “I love you” and then reacting strangely because they are not used to such behaviors in their environment, due to old trauma and exclusion; loneliness is wanting to grab their hand outside and move away and kiss them, but not being able to do so outside or with the said company. Loneliness is sleeping at night and the bed is always laid out on one side, convincing you to sleep alone, with the only wrinkle, the one in your soul.
You feel lonely when you are out at the club and no one is paying attention to you. When you see the people who are partying relentlessly, all being couples, but you are alone because your friends do not know about you. Loneliness is when you sit alone in a corner and you remember back then in school that you were bullied, or when you were alone because no one was hanging out with you, ending up feeling the same pain as then.
You also experience loneliness when you express your feelings and opinions through a screen and you expect to find a response from anyone; when also you try to find love on screen, but then you give up chances of companionship. You feel lonely when you walk alone down the street, and all you hear is your constant thoughts.
The “epidemic” of loneliness can have many faces, and at some point, it enters the life of all of us, be it straight people or from the LGBTQIAP+ community. Some know how to control it easily, while others bond with it, to the point where they drown themselves in life and emotions. Locked in the closet, they monologue and justify their fears for life, hoping that one day the change will come. But all they really do is to further nourish their loneliness, so that day by day eats them more and more, leading to a vicious cycle of pain.
And if you hear someone say that loneliness is a good thing, know that they have never experienced it. None of us should feel alone in the world. There is someone or something out there for all of us. The moments, bad or good, come and go, but we just stay in the same situations. And what if you feel alone because of your sexuality, your gender, your color, or for whatever reason? The miracle of life is exactly the difference that there is in the world. After all, we all have the right to love and be loved, no matter our sexuality.
